Dana Alsamsam

Independence Day

The fireworks shut their mouths 
& the moon rises red         & ripe 

We hardly believe it at first      that bright 
dinner plate pushing its shoulder

above the water line        winking 
at us through the trees 

Your eyes preen awe 
from between my teeth           & all that red 

spills out between us
You wonder how it tastes

so you guide me by the neck 
until our lips unfold        consume

By the time we look up again 
the moon has returned 

to itself        high & white
the feeling in our throats now

illegible        How can anything 
be so close          disappear so simply

Dana Alsamsam is a first generation Syrian-American from Chicago and is currently based in Boston where she works in arts development. A Lambda Literary fellow, she received her MFA in Poetry from Emerson College where she was the Editor-in-Chief of Redivider and Senior Editorial Assistant at Ploughshares. She is the author of a chapbook, (in)habit (tenderness lit, 2018), and her poems are published or forthcoming in The Massachusetts Review, North American Review, The Shallow Ends, The Offing, Muzzle Magazine, BOOTH, The Common, and others.